KAMASUTRA - an unreleased soundtrack from 1968
by Irmin Schmidt and The Inner Space

Better late than never? A good four decades after its making, a rare gem is up for release: the soundtrack to Kobi Jaeger's erotic and educational epic KAMASUTRA - consummation of love composed and recorded by Irmin Schmidt & The Inner Space. A precursor to krautrock pioneers CAN, Schmidt's 1968 recording assembles Can's original line-up - Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit and Malcolm Mooney - who later went on to craft the band's seminal debut, Monster Movie.

The film KAMASUTRA - consummation of love switches between India and Germany and stars Bruno Dietrich and Barbara Schöne. A prime example of late 1960s German erotica and the so-called sexual revolution, it liberated the subject of sex from dingy red light cinemas and whisked it away to the exotic Far East, to the realm that - more than a millennium earlier - had spawned the erotic teachings of the KAMASUTRA. Fast-forward to the present day and you will find the film's well-intentioned, in parts pedagogical approach bristling with (un)intentional comedy.

Many bands and composers from the late 1960s were intrigued by eastern philosophy and influenced by oriental sounds. Besides several laid-back, percussive instrumentals laced with flutes and sitars, the soundtrack also features two vocal tracks: 'I'm Hiding My Nightingale' (sung by Margarete Juvan), 'There Was A Man' (sung by Malcolm Mooney).